Chapter Two: Pale Rider
Anders' song is Barclay James Harvest: Medicine Man
Lambert's song is Adagio in D Minor (Sunshine end scene)
"We can't escape the violence because it's not about us,' Anders told his audience in the ruin of Andoral's Reach. The highest remaining tower was near to bursting with several hundred mages. A collapsed column at the centre served as his stage. 'It's about them. Their rage - and make no mistake, it will be rage - is because they cannot change us. What they want is our fear. They want to look into our eyes and see us hoping for mercy. But it isn't going to be like that. Our fear is ours and ours alone to give."
Anders stared out at the gathered mages – terrified, disorganized, institutionalized. Only a very few – Irving, Petra, Anders himself – had combat experience. They had fought during the Fifth Blight. Anders privately thought it ironic the Templar he – still – hated had been responsible for forging the Fereldan mages into a fighting unit.
Rylock had certainly not been doing it for them: Ferelden's armies had been in a desperate situation and she had been thinking laterally. But it had taught institutionalized mages they could fight together - and win. He was grateful - and would never forgive her. That same battle had got Karl - his first - killed. He would never forget it: Karl's void eyes staring out into the future no longer his to claim. At least Karl had been burned like the Alamarri chieftains of old – a memorial with their names now stood at Ostagar – rather than being ground into powder and his nameless remains tossed into Lake Calenhad. Mages had to die in war to be treated like people.
Rylock's speech afterwards hadn't even mentioned the sacrifice of the mages! She had simply read out the names of the Templars - the ones who were supposedly in the Golden City. Anders had privately hoped the Maker would be treating them the way they had treated mages. There hadn't been the chance to properly mourn Karl – the situation at Ostagar had been desperate; the losses horrendous. Trapped between two darkspawn armies, they would have been slaughtered to a man – and the women... worse than that...
Nathaniel Howe had asked for a mage volunteer and chosen Anders - to Rylock's fury - and he, Zevran and the future Champion of Kirkwall had used blasting powder to destroy the darkspawn – and most of Lothering Forest! The three had journeyed to Denerim, stopping at Amaranthine – and there Nathaniel had asked if they would be willing to help him clear the Blackmarsh. By the end of their mission Anders had gained someone closer than a lover and dearer to him than the child he would never have. And Nathaniel had tricked Acting Knight Commander Rylien – an eighteen-year-old Templar with more faith than common sense – into giving him Anders' phylactery.
Nathaniel always claimed to have destroyed the phylactery, but Anders wasn't stupid – it was damn convenient the way Nathaniel was always able to find him! But Nathaniel had never given him away – had instead chosen to use him in his plans. This included the refining of blasting powder into black powder. Only a select few had known the secret: Nathaniel, Anders and Zevran. As a result, Zevran was now First Talon of the Antivan Crows, Nathaniel was taking on the Chantry hardliners, and Anders was fighting for mages.
And - he was still not sure whether this foolish bit of generosity would come back to haunt him – Anders had shared the secret with Fenris, to help him fight Tractus Danarius. Anders had felt ashamed and guilty for having tried to sell Fenris back to Danarius in order to gain the allies he needed to free the Gallows mages – free his own love, Lambert Hawke. Hawke would never forgive him: that decision had cost Anders the second person he had ever loved.
Fenris now wielded a curious weapon. It resembled Varric's crossbow, but only as a hunting hawk resembles a sparrow. The weapon fired gaatlok, and was driven – in some strange way Anders did not understand – by the lyrium brands. Fenris had been lethal before – now he was a vessel of invincibility.
Anders reflected giving a magehunter a weapon like that was probably the stupidest thing he had ever done – and that bar was pretty high.
Leliana – the Left Hand of the Divine – had persuaded Lambert to become the first mage to undergo Seeker training. Divine Justinia had wanted to use the evidence at the Conclave – to argue that, if mages could be rendered immune to possession, they could be trusted. Trusting Leliana was yet another example of Lambert's naïveté - but, Anders figured, if he survived the training, he could use his powers to help Fenris - now his husband – fight the Tevinter faction known as 'Venatori'.
Anders had begged Fenris to help him defend these hopeless, helpless, incompetent mages – people like Emille de Launcet and Godwin and Edmonde – from the army coming to kill them. Trying to train these institutionalized mages was like herding cats. Fenris had promised he would – but, then again, Anders had once promised never to work with Danarius. Fenris had left with Seeker Leliana to bring Lambert back from the Hunterhorn Mountains, but whether the three of them would actually come here – fight the good fight – or simply bypass Andoral's Reach to report to Justinia he did not know. The Seeker and Templar army – led by Lord Seeker Lambert van Reeves (it was strange to hear the name of the man Anders – still - loved used by such an unworthy recipient!) and Knight Divine Gerard Caron were only a day away.
Andoral's Reach was the ruin of a Tevinter fortress. It was decrepit – the towers covered in ivy – and a chill wind ruffled his hair though the arrow-slits. The trebuchets and mangonels – anything wooden – had not stood the test of time, but the walls and battlements would still offer protection. And, of course, mages did not need siege machines to hurl rocks or arrows to spread fire. An army of three hundred mages could hold off an invading force ten times that size.
"Let them come!" he told his audience. Grand Enchanter Fiona and Enchanter Rhys – his strongest supporters – cheered, but a susurrus of whispers fluttered through the chamber.
"Easy enough for you to say – you've been an apostate for years! And – some say – an apostate plus one... "
The rumour flew like a malediction but Anders did not dignify it with a response. They did not deserve to know about Justice – how Justice had been a good spirit, no demon – until he had become corrupted by Anders' own anger. But Justice had still not been a demon – in the real sense - no demon would have deliberately killed itself to atone for lives lost. But they would not understand - and it made no difference anyway. Justice was gone.
"If your Resolutionists hadn't stirred up trouble in Kirkwall the Seekers and Templars could have been reasoned with."
"Rubbish!" Enchanter Adrian – a woman with flame-red hair who was Rhys' lover – cried out, "Grand Enchanter Fiona called for the vote in Cumberland and the majority agreed. What happened in Kirkwall was merely the first strike of a war already begun!"
Rhys came forward to stand beside his lover. "If we turn on each other now we will lose – and we will deserve to."
To Anders' surprise, Wynne – the tiresome old woman who had been the bane of his existence as a rebellious young apprentice at Kinloch Hold; the useful idiot who had counselled the mages to vote Remain – now stood in support of her son.
"The time for debate is done. We voted to fight, and we fight as one. The time has come for us to put aside our assumptions of the past – the assumptions of others as well as our assumptions about ourselves. We now know it is possible to reverse Tranquillity – Knight Commander Rylock walked through fire to cure Thomas Amell and every Tranquil who sought shelter in Haven has been offered the same..."
Could that be true? Or was it more of Wynne's ridiculous trust in authority? Some said Wynne and Rylock had been more than friends – Anders had privately enjoyed the salacious rumours that mage and Templar had shared a night together after the battle of Drakon River – perhaps she was seeing Rylock through rose-tinted spectacles?
"...I was there. I saw it with my own eyes."
Was Rylock wearing any clothes? Anders wanted to say – but managed to bite his tongue.
"We have proof possession can be prevented by the Litany of Adralla and now even reversed! First Enchanter Irving, Senior Enchanters Sweeney and Ines and myself once entered the Fade to save Connor Guerrin, and we found Warden Jowan had already done so! There is even an account by one Varric Tethras that claims there is a Dalish ritual that can allow non-mages to enter the Fade and battle demons..."
"I was there!" Anders backed her up, "I have seen Lambert Hawke save a boy named Feynriel from possession. Lambert Hawke is a mage – but Varric Tethras and Fenris are not and they were there too."
Wynne shot him a grateful look and Anders – for once – found himself liking the old biddy.
"The Templars have never tried this because the Seeker Order have never allowed them to know it is possible. Nor have they ever tried to put a mage through Seeker training. Lambert Hawke is doing this now – and Leliana and I are hoping it will render him immune to possession and Blood Magic. If he succeeds, we should all be given that opportunity. Not forced to – as we were forced to undergo Harrowings – but given the right to choose. We know nothing of demons, or our own limitations, and we must learn to look upon things with new eyes. But the Lord Seeker and his army are not coming to listen to us – they are coming to kill us. They know no other way, and never will unless we teach it to them!"
Anders thought about Wynne's words about putting aside old assumptions as he descended the steps to the remains of the fortress dungeon. The mages had converted a pile of crumbling stone into a prison, with warding glyphs, and spells to shelter the occupants from the summer rains. Still, it didn't look particularly comfortable. Weeds thrust up through the floor, and moss clung to every surface it could.
Anders was coming to visit Evelina.
Evelina: the dark-haired, frail young woman who had been an apprentice at Redcliffe at the time Anders and the other mages were fighting – had slipped away in the chaos. She had ended up in the sewers of Kirkwall and adopted several child refugees fleeing the Blight. Then she had – the only other person Anders knew to be this naïve was Lambert Hawke - brought them to the Chantry in the hope Grand Cleric Elthina would shelter them. Instead, Elthina had called on Meredith to 'arrest the apostate' and left the children to starve in the sewers. Only...Evelina had escaped and returned to the sewers to care for her adopted children.
Anders would have been delighted – had the price of her escape not been possession. A demon had offered Evelina the power to escape the Gallows and save her children – if she let it in. Knowing what he had done himself – if he was free of Justice now, that was only because Justice himself had chosen death to atone for the innocents lost in the Chantry explosion – Anders could hardly judge. But the fact remained: an abomination was a danger to them all.
Most said she should be put down but a handful – the Libertarians and Lucrosians – said this was only a remnant of Chantry teaching. These charming fellows believed Evelina should be chained like a dangerous animal and brought out when needed to kill Seekers and Templars:
"Think of her as a weapon – a weapon we can make sure is directed at them not us."
Only Anders had argued she was still a human being – and should be treated as such:
"It is madness and cruelty that define abominations. If these are lacking – if the person remains herself – then it doesn't matter what she looks like. She is a human being with a human soul and we cannot just kill or use her like a rabid dog."
But it was undeniable that – during the times the demon had control - Evelina was a threat to everyone – even the children she had sold her soul to save.
He was facing her through the open door of her cell, which was guarded by magical glyphs. Sometimes the demon would fling itself against them in a rage, then fall back, howling.
Worse still were the moments it allowed Evelina to come back. Then the voice – no longer a woman's voice - would become a pitiful, hesitant mumbling:
"You be very careful, Anders. I'm down at the bottom of a big black hole. I can't think very well now, but that doesn't matter: it does all my thinking for me."
Anders could never make up his mind whether it was a demon's trick or whether a decaying psychic energy that had once been Evelina were fitfully and miserably alive within the abomination. Or if what was left was no longer a woman at all; if the memories of Evelina were speaking through the lips of the abomination while what drove it was only the demon's will.
"Honestly, the things I've seen."
Anders supposed possession would open up new sights but it was clear none of them had any significance. She kept picking up objects – cups, stones, cloth - and looking at them without understanding; putting them back down again. Surrounded by things with meanings and prevented forever from grasping them.
"Don't be angry," said Evelina, "There's no good being angry with me. I thought you might be sorry. Anders, it's awful. I'm in here. Right down under layers and layers. Buried alive. I try to connect things and can't. I'm not a person - just a jumble of urges. And they're all dark. It rots my brain. It rots my soul. It takes my mind…and I can't even look back on what life was like before because I know it never did mean anything even in the beginning."
The captive will had slowly poisoned the intelligence and the affections and was starting to consume itself. The whole psyche had fallen to pieces. Only a ghost was left: a crumbling, a ruin, an odour of decay.
"And this," he thought, "Would have been my fate, if Justice had stayed within me."
That thought made Anders pause. He had made the same mistake – and was recovering. Fenris had made the same mistake – and been saved by Lambert Hawke, who had fought Wryme for his soul in the Fade. And won. If Lambert – who had been twenty years old at the time and barely a mage - could be that strong, what was his excuse?
Anders had been involved in Keeper Marethari's ritual: Anders/Justice, Fenris, Lambert and Varric had all been sent into the Fade to free Feynriel. Actually, Keeper Marethari had told them to kill Feynriel – fearing the boy would be too powerful as an abomination to be unleashed on Thedas – and, while Fenris had agreed with her, Anders, Justice, Varric and Lambert had not. Wryme had used Fenris' past – his rage, his terror, his sense of betrayal – to persuade him to allow it in. But Lambert had saved both Feynriel – currently a Somniari training under Magister Gereon Alexius – and Fenris.
Fenris had not been terribly grateful at the time. He had angrily told Lambert: "You have given a Dreamer to a Tevinter Magister – what comes from that will be on your conscience."
"At least you won't be an abomination – I have saved you from your own stupidity!" Lambert had retorted.
The two had bickered a lot during those early years. Even then Anders had sensed Fenris was his romantic rival. Whether he knew it or not, Fenris had fallen in love with Lambert. Sometimes, Anders wondered whether his own anger and jealousy had played a part in his betrayal of Fenris – whether it hadn't only been about saving his love and the other mages.
Whatever...Fenris was well revenged.
And he - Anders realized with a sort of resigned certainty - was going to attempt to recreate Marethari's ritual and save Evelina from her demon. They had enough lyrium – all the Enchanters had brought as many crates as they could carry to Andoral's Reach. A shame they had not taken similar care to save the mage children and Tranquil! Anders and Evelina had been the only two who had bothered. The mage children and Tranquil of Kirkwall were the only ones here. The Senior Enchanters kept giving the Tranquil orders – Anders put a stop to that when he caught them, telling them in no uncertain terms that if they were going to function as an army they should at least learn to mend their own socks!
The fate of the mage children and Tranquil in all the other Circles lay heavy on his soul. They would all have been Annulled by blood-crazed Seekers and Red Templars. Unless...Thomas Amell and Minaeve had been successful in saving the children at the White Spire? Unless they had taken them to Haven – and somehow convinced that cow Rylock not to Annul them on the spot?
Anders forced his mind away from what he could not control. He could attempt the ritual. Would it be right to do so – against the will of whatever part of Evelina was left? How would he have felt if Lambert had tried to do the same to him? Lambert had written to his cousin asking if it were possible – a bit of staggering naïveté that had seen Rylock – bitch! - open and read his letter then tell Meredith to torture the truth out of him. But – after being rescued - Lambert had sworn he would never have tried to do it unless Anders himself had asked.
"That would be like a doctor performing an abortion against a woman's will – I'd never do anything without your consent."
Anders had known he was telling the truth.
But could Evelina consent? There were times a doctor had to act in the best interests of his patient, when they were no longer capable of consenting. Evelina had told him her situation was awful – he would have to take that as permission.
"Evelina," he said softly – speaking to whatever part of her was left - "I want you to look into my eyes..."
General Loghain Mac Tir had shown Anders how to make maps. They used a marking system, dividing the land into squares. The War Council – Senior Enchanters, First Enchanters and Anders – were studying cliffs, slopes, the routes the Seeker army would have to take.
In a moment of vision Anders saw what he had to do. The upper valley opened to the high plateau above the plain, the attackers would have to come from the fields below. Or enter the canyon and attack the fortress from the base of the cliffs. The Tevinters had chosen this place well – Orlais hadn't had the sense to realize what they were taking over.
Anders had his primal mages manning the battlements, where a regular army would have soldiers with flaming arrows. He and the Fereldan mages had called up every bit of memory they had in order to repair as many of the trebuchets as possible. Given power by Force Mages, these would prove devastating.
"I wish we had a horse trail out," Irving said fretfully, "Then we could send someone to warn Haven."
"Why would you want to warn Thomas and Minaeve – they are traitors who left us to join the so-called Ferelden Circle, after we voted the Circles were dead!" Adrian objected.
Anders really didn't have the strength for this – saving Evelina from her demon had taken every bit of mana he had. He had not replenished it with lyrium – until the war started, they would not need his healing skills, and right now lyrium was in short supply.
"Thomas Amell and Minaeve are not traitors," he snapped at Adrian, "They left us to save as many children and Tranquil in the White Spire as they could. That was your job: you should have protected your own children – yours by nurturing if not by blood – and the Tranquil who once were as you are now. You didn't - so they had to do it for you!"
"He's right." Rhys put a hand on Adrian's shoulder. The couple fought more than they embraced, but Rhys was fervid with lust for her. Anders couldn't blame him. She had a provocative irritability.
The loss of a powerful mage like Thomas was a blow. Even as a Tranquil Thomas had been clever enough to save many lives at Ostagar – now he was a skilled Elementalist. Minaeve was less of a loss: she was barely a mage, happiest in a research environment.
He was not sure how he felt about Loyalists like Keili and First Enchanter Vivienne who had chosen to join the defenders of Haven. It did seem a sort of betrayal – but they were also fighting the Red Templars, forcing van Reeves to divide his forces. They were allies, Anders decided. It was galling to know they had chosen to follow Knight Commander Rylock - of all people! - rather than fight alongside their fellow mages. Sweeney and Ines he supposed he could understand - at seventy they were probably unable to make the trip - although Irving had managed to.
But when the mages had voted in Cumberland they had all agreed to follow the majority verdict – whether it went against their own convictions or not. Nothing had been said about choosing to serve in Haven as part of a Ferelden mage-Templar community! They were mages: their only community – only loyalties – should be to each other.
Still, the only people Anders considered traitors were the pathetic group of Loyalists who had chosen to join the Lord Seeker – who would be trying to kill them tomorrow. They could show no mercy to anyone - for they would receive none - but Anders hated these more than he hated the Seekers and Templars.
Petra was in charge of the unit of Thaumaturgists who would be dealing with them. Her use of Dispel Magic was nowhere near as powerful as Sweeney's, but she was the best they had. The mages from Hossberg were specialists in Entropy. Anders smiled to think of those helmed bastards being trapped in cages of magic, left to slowly bleed out their lives.
But the problem was: any of their spells – years to practice; only a few able to cast well – could be undone by any green Templar recruit with a vial of lyrium. That was why Grand Enchanter Fiona had suggested Blood Magic – as a Warden, she could do what others would not dare – but, unfortunately, Anders had had to warn her that all the Templars now knew the Litany of Adralla. Not just van Reeves – who had kept the knowledge to himself for his own power – but all of them.
He did not tell them how. He could not bring himself to call Lambert Hawke a traitor – and did not approve of Blood Magic anyway – but it had deprived them of a potential weapon. Lambert had been a naïve eighteen-year-old when he had helped Cullen rescue Keran from Tarohne – and taught them both to use the Litany. Lambert had been foolish to trust his childhood sweetheart and his fellow Fereldan. It hadn't stopped Knight Captain Cullen enabling his torture by Alrik.
The only way Anders had to counter the disparity in numbers and ease of training was by ensuring his Primal and Force mages hit first and hit hard. He smiled grimly. Once a group of Templars had been smashed to bits by Stonefist there'd be no use using Dispel to reverse the effects! He and Rhys were battlefield healers first – but they would also be using every combat spell in their arsenal.
Emille de Launcet grinned at him. "We'll win tomorrow! And we'll be rich: able to buy all those things in market you've told us about. We won't have to dig the horse trail by magic – we can hire men to do it."
The others talked on, their plans growing ever more grandiose and ridiculous. Anders sighed. He could see his responsibility was not only to win this war but also to protect them from themselves.
There was a terrific banging on the outer gate – a sound like thunder. Everyone jumped. Anders, Fiona, Rhys and Adrian recovered first – moved to the gate like a well-trained unit.
"If someone could open this I'd appreciate it!"
The voice was cultured – Tevene, obviously – exhausted, and wry.
Anders opened the gate. The young Tevinter magister – he was so well-spoken he could not be anything else, despite his nondescript clothes – was exhausted and bloodied from fighting through Templars to get here.
"I'm here to warn you. Fashionably late, I'm afraid."
"If you mean warn us about the Templar army – we know."
The healer in Anders was more concerned with the blood covering the man's clothes. "Is that blood yours?"
"Is it ever?"
The stranger stumbled and Anders caught him. He was the same height, and his dark eyes were luminous lakes. They held secrets that might either buoy or drown him.
"Mite exhausted. Don't mind me."
They closed the gate and the stranger introduced himself.
"My name is Dorian Pavus and I bring grave news. The Templar army are not only being led by the Lord Seeker and the Knight Divine. The Knight Commander - Samson, I believe – is an agent of the Venatori, in service to something called 'The Elder One.'"
Anders remembered Lambert telling him about his adventure in the Vinmark Mountains – with Rillian Tabris – fighting a being called Corypheus: an immortal darkspawn magister. Lambert claimed the Hero of Ferelden had killed this being, but Anders had always wondered: could an 'immortal darkspawn magister' really be killed? Perhaps it had simply changed residences, as Archdemons did unless it was a Warden who killed them?
"Let me guess – this 'Elder One' is a darkspawn emissary?"
"You're quick." Dorian's dark eyes flashed in admiration. "And, yes. The Elder One has not shown itself yet – but my former mentor, Magister Gereon Alexius, is in thrall. As is Magister Livius Erimond. As are the Wardens of Weisshaupt. The Lord Seeker and the Knight Divine are only useful idiots – but Samson is...something else."
"You have given a Dreamer to a Tevinter Magister – what comes from that will be on your conscience."
Had Fenris been more right than Anders had suspected? How many escaped mages had they sent to Alexius over the years?
A different – more monstrous - thought struck him.
"If the Knight Commander is an agent of a darkspawn emissary, could he be tainted? Could he spread taint to us, as the darkspawn did during the Fifth Blight?"
Fiona interrupted him, "If this 'Elder One' is as powerful as you say, we should bargain with it."
"There is no bargaining with The Elder One. It takes what it wants."
"Don't listen to him - he's Tevene. This must be a trick!"
Fiona sounded shrill, frantic. Anders wondered just what could make her fear Dorian's words.
"I'll hear him out."
"As Grand Enchanter, I forbid it."
"I wish you wouldn't. If you forbid me, I'll have to disobey. I'd dislike that." Anders said mildly
The others were looking at Fiona in horror – and dawning comprehension.
Anders decided they really didn't have time to decide whether Fiona had betrayed them or not; whatever she knew about the darkspawn who had control of Weisshaupt – and how long had Fiona been a Warden at Weisshaupt? - it would make no difference. The army was only a day away – there was no way Fiona could contact them and make their situation any worse.
Fiona subsided, knowing there was no power she really had to forbid him talking with Dorian. Now that the Circle system had been dissolved, words like 'Grand Enchanter' were words without meaning. The person leading their defenses - giving the mages hope – was Anders. Fiona had been a Warden Mage for thirty years but had never actually seen war - her one experience of action was the journey of a small group of Wardens into the Deep Roads. She had missed the Fifth Blight. The person the mages were listening to was Anders – and if he wanted to hear Dorian out there was nothing she could do.
"Dorian - as a Tevinter magister you must have ways of defending a fortress. Tell me what we have overlooked. Give me a plan. Anything."
Anders found himself leading Dorian around their fortifications. Of course it was madness to trust the Altus – but Anders found himself doing so. At least, more than he trusted Fiona. He could only be grateful for Dorian's presence - Tevinter magisters had been fighting each other for centuries - and that included fighting the non-magical shock troops the rivals fielded as grunts. Dorian had read De Re Militari (Anders was ashamed to realise he had not - it was either medical textbooks or Varric's novels) and his advice was proving invaluable. They were at least positioned correctly - as they had been when defending Ostagar - and when Dorian pronounced himself satisfied they grinned at each other. There was an offer of mutual allegiance and…something more…
They climbed the last few steps to the south-eastern watchtower. In the changeable light of blowing clouds, the stone walls and towers seemed alive, shifting shape like Fade dreams. Clefts and hollows in the rocks gave them leering faces that smoothed into pallid vacuity when the light steadied. They heard the rustling of the pines; the whispering of the wind. Anders kept thinking he saw dark things moving in the upper canyons – but of course those were the cloudshadows.
The sky was low and thick - the air grey – with the steel taste of rain.
Fastidiously – ludicrously – Dorian brushed dust from the flat surface of his chosen crenel. On seeing Anders' incredulity, he shrugged, sheepish. Dorian winked at him and Anders was startled into smiling, unable to do anything but gesture and grin.
"You could leave, you know," Anders reminded him, "Use the Ring of Doubt to slip past the army - return home."
"Don't be silly," Dorian scoffed, "I'd rather take up residence in a septic tank. We'll fight tomorrow - and win."
He was ridiculously handsome - and knew it. Lambert had been handsome, too, but - despite his former profession as one of Madame Lusine's courtesans - a little shy. A little aware of the absurdity of being judged by appearances. Dorian was fine as hell and knew it. He made no apologies.
A bluish shiver of lightning went over the fortress. Then thunder like a giant tree starting to fall. The storm peeled the air and brought out a thinner version of a scent Anders had known before. It was taint – approaching with the Templar army.
The rain began: fast, rough, petrichloral, upsetting crates of the past. Anders remembered the first time he had escaped the Tower - for no more than a day - feeling the rain on his skin, tilting his face up and sticking out his tongue to catch the droplets. This, he had known then, is what freedom smells like.
Dorian frowned delicately - and Anders realised that, of course, he had never been a prisoner. He had been the son of a magister, never demonised for who he was. Shamefully, jealousy rose in him - he had envied Lambert his childhood too - and he caught and stamped on it. Dorian was risking his life to help them and he didn't have to…the last thing he deserved was Anders blaming him for the circumstances of his birth. Anders would have been born the son of a Tevinter magister if he could.
The thought – briefly - gave him pause. His own father had been a waste of oxygen but he had loved his mother. She had given him twelve happy years. She would have been a slave in Tevinter. Well, he thought, enjoying the romance: maybe she and the magister would have fallen for each other like Lambert's parents…something like a Varric novel. He missed Varric. He hadn't known that before, when Justice had occupied all his thoughts, but he knew it now.
Now, standing next to Dorian, smelling him - musk and patchouli and gardenias - he felt their silent contract about not saying anything about what this might be. He felt the memory of Justice like a fragment of logic. If p then q. If Justice then…then what?
"This is going to sound bizarre," Dorian said.
"I'm ready for the bizarre."
"Let's spend the night before battle in your quarters. A spell or two will make it seem just like home."
The coyness surprised Anders. Circle mages were used to taking their pleasure when they found it. If you liked sex (and most adults did) you just went the rounds on a regular basis. Dorian seemed - almost shy? Almost struggling with himself. Were things different in Tevinter? Anders studied him.
"Can you consent? The booze, I mean." It had not been lost on him that Dorian had consumed an unwise amount, during their tour of the fortress.
"I'm sober as a judge."
Anders remembered his doomed attempts to escape Kinloch Hold - the subsistence suckings and fuckings at the Pearl - while the essential Anders stood to one side, as if watching himself. Love had been out of the question. No mage has ever dared fall in love, he had told Lambert. He thought of Karl. The flesh burning. The organs briefly slithering in the lined casket. Now ash - and a name on a memorial at Ostagar. Not him.
Anders felt different after the loss of Justice - a mother losing her pregnancy; a man losing his twin - small, shrivelled down to a feathery essence, buffeted and drenched by the storms of life. It brought a thin feeling of sadness and a tiredness deep in his bones.
He sent a silent toast to them, then faced Dorian: the dark eyes' naked recognition.
"That sounds like a fucking brilliant idea."
Anders and Dorian did their best with the decrepit raw material of their 'bedroom'. He wasn't bothered: the rooms at the Pearl or the attic at Kinloch Hold had not been an improvement. As for the time he and Namaya had done it on the run…
He weathered surges of adrenaline every time he realised the truth: something important is happening.
The two faced each other. Anders thought of it like a duel – who would give in first. He wondered why Dorian was here.
"Sometimes something happens to you," Dorian said, "And it becomes the thing against which everything else has to make sense."
Anders thought of his own attempt to sell Fenris back to the magister who had raped and tortured him. He, Anders, who claimed to hate slavery – to stand against it.
"Or against which everything else fails to make sense."
Since Justice's death, Anders' whole body felt alien to him – he was floating somewhere above and behind it, operating it as if remotely. But what Dorian was offering would suck him back into his own body – so that, when the Red Templars came tomorrow, he would be terrified of leaving it. He didn't want to take it back – wanted to push Dorian away. But – as if against his own interests – he felt his mouth moving against Dorian's in strange, confusing ways.
The air swelled, the heat rose between them, and it occurred to Anders that he was not the only one for whom the clock was ticking. It was likely both he and Dorian would be dead tomorrow - dead in battle, if they were lucky. If they were unlucky, they might be tainted, or made Acts of Faith or - worst of all - Tranquil. Why was Dorian here? Anders had no choice - these mages were his people. Dorian - the scion of a powerful Tevinter magister - didn't have to be here at all.
Granted, if his tutor - Gereon Alexius - were now serving a Magister Sidereal then staying with him would not be good for Dorian's prospects. Nor could he just leave. An Altus without allies in Tevinter was meat for predators. Why hadn't he gone back to his powerful father? What had happened between them? Anders realised he must not be the one to ask - Dorian would tell him when he was ready. He had found his own recollections were the process of discovering how much in his life he didn't want to remember. And how much - like it or not - he did. For whatever reason, Dorian was here, now, about to die alongside them. The realisation put Anders in touch with eternity. Tonight, the mortal flesh would receive its due.
Anders, in calm shock - unable to admit this was happening – took off his clothes and got into bed. For a moment Dorian looked at him. Then gave a decisive gulp of wine.
"Fucking hell."
He clambered over Anders, still fully dressed. There was an unmanly sexual pleasure in that. Karl had been his first - had shown him the way - Lambert had been someone Anders had desired to protect…but now, on the eve of leading mages to death or worse on his command, he found himself glad for Dorian taking control. It was like a holiday from himself. Dorian crawled on top of him and hunted his mouth, nipples, stomach and erection.
They were urgent, discovering the scents on each other - the softness and hardness of hips and buttocks - triumphantly graceless, happy to thrust in a celebratory psychic shout.
This is who we are. Sooner dead than changed.
There were second and third rounds - mages could regenerate mana, which was good for more than just spellcasting.
At moments he saw Dorian's face: alternatively present and abstracted, wondering where his old self had gone and whether this vortex might release him. They kissed and Anders was glad to surrender to the void where thinking had been. Dorian's voice like a shocking gift:
"Kiss me. You kiss me."
What was there to do but obey him and move into apotheosis?
The possibility of love flashed like a rich red vein, like a vial of lyrium: astonishing him, panicking him. Anders was frightened into digging up Lambert's face: gargoyleish with shock and misery as he discovered Anders had betrayed Fenris:
"How can you not be who you are? I never knew you."
From the collapsed star of that relationship came this silence, these depths, this threat. Will I betray Dorian? Will he betray me? Will we both die tomorrow? Then it was over, and they lay side by side on their backs: blinking, razed. He turned towards Dorian: his nocturnal hair and elegant moustache. The moonlight shone on the wet convexities of caliginous eyes and open mouth.
Dorian met his stare. As old as me, Anders realised. No one younger would have that look at his disposal: weariness, a fleck of rapture, an awareness of the absurdity of their situation. The recognition they would be unlikely to live up to their own ideals and the mad human faith that they could.
"That was good," Dorian breathed, light from the moon on his bare shoulder and hip.
"Only 'good'?" Anders said in feigned outrage.
"You know better. You want a compliment, don't you.?"
They made each other laugh. Anders couldn't remember making anybody laugh since joining with Justice - spirits had no sense of humour; the cause was everything - when he had tried to be light-hearted with Lambert the jokes had come out of his mouth, stillborn. Discovering he could now make Dorian laugh felt as odd and wonderful as everything else about this night.
They had a welter of talk in them - about the fluke and glory of this - but they weren't going to do anything about it just yet. In an hour they would all be fighting for their lives. In the shuffling, hovering darkness, preparations were made. Confidences, never before spoken aloud, some never before thought through to conclusions, were shared. Those who slept at all twitched and muttered. Others lay awake, intrigued by living as only those aware of death's hovering presence can be.
The bare, black trees resembled many-fingered giants, burnt and raising blasted digits to the sky.
The party of seven rode towards Andoral's Reach from the dim wall of forest surrounding the Blasted Hills. The summer rains had spread a healing poultice of grass across the torn, burnt land. The Anders word for the 'blasted hills' was the 'burned earth' or 'black soil.' Oscura. It was rich in chernozem deposits, hummus and decomposed plants.
Lambert remembered Anders teaching him: such soil would be good in fields, to grow sunflowers, corn, barley and rye – but it also contained phosphorous and ammonia that could be used to make fire. A good place for both defenders and attackers.
They advanced through a rain-spattered night. The rain produced a gargle of phantom voices, eager and quarrelsome, guttural and whispery, spitting out questions in unknown tongues.
The shuddering greenery cast nervous shadows. The steadily escalating wind spoke through the rustling foliage and the cricket-rasping branches. A hollow flute-like music issued from the caves: a haunting keening that curled chillingly, akin to the ululating cry of wolves chasing down prey in some far canyon of the night. It deepened to a threnody that reminded Lambert of the music he had once played on a serpentine clarinet.
After the year of solitude and silence – the four Seeker recruits had been training at the same time but each alone – so many things seemed strange to Lambert. He was aware of the elaborate texture of his own skin to an extent he had never experienced nor imagined possible. He felt every arch, loop and whorl, each tiny ridge and each finger pad seemed to have its own exquisite array of sensations. His pale grey palfrey seemed a universe of warmth, of connection.
More tactile data flowed to him than he was able to process or understand. He was overwhelmed by the millions of microscopic colours invisible to the naked eye (Rillian had once told him there was a world smaller than her light microscope was capable of showing) and he could feel the dyes and fixatives and alchemical compounds of his own boots and clothes.
The moonshadow lit the clouds with a gauzy collar like phosphorescent foam. The night was pierced by an almost-moon, but the rain rolled naked, black, invisible. The weight was like the low dumb grumble of a great watery machine. Eternal rhythms, meaningless motions, the peace of indifference. It reminded him of Seeker training.
The Right and Left Hands of the Divine – Lady Cassandra Pentaghast and Leliana - led Lambert and his fellow new Seekers, Cullen, Daniel and Cade, and his dear husband, Fenris. Fenris had accompanied Leliana to the Hunterhorn mountains as soon as Lambert's year of training was up.
Fenris rode a fine black Starkhaven stallion as if he had been born to it. Lambert's husband was still wearing his Grafted Spirit Hide Armour but the white and green cloak was that of Prince Sebastian's Captain of the Guard. He wielded a strange mechanical crossbow he called a 'bolter' and his greatsword, Lethandralis.
Lambert was dismayed to smell the lyrium on him: like steel rain. Fenris had come prepared for combat – had taken the potion that would turn his hands into living weapons – and cause him agony. Lambert winced. When was the last time his husband had taken the potions Lambert had made for him – to ease the pain and cure him eventually?
Fenris read the question and his handsome, dark-skinned face crinkled in an unrepentant grin.
"I took your potions when I needed to," he said, "And I've taken lyrium because we'll need it tonight. The mages at Andoral's Reach will be attacked – and I promised Anders I would help."
"You...promised Anders you would help him?" Lambert asked, shocked by Fenris' generosity. After Anders had tried to sell Fenris back to Danarius!
"He did that for you, you know – his demon told him the deal with Danarius was necessary to free you from the Gallows. He...he healed you afterwards." Fenris' voice hitched slightly – whether at the memory or the admission Anders had done what he could not Lambert wasn't sure, "I'll forgive him the deal with Danarius for that."
"He shouldn't have let Justice in in the first place!"
Fenris shrugged. "And I shouldn't have been stupid enough to let Wryme in. At least the demon who tricked Anders was handsome and heroic. Mine was ugly enough to tree a barking wolf."
Lambert giggled reluctantly. He supposed he was being a bit hypocritical, given he had counselled Fenris against going after Cullen. Fenris would never forgive Cullen for enabling Alrik.
He was wielding Encore: Leliana had specifically brought it for him, to make clear Lambert was a Seeker but also a mage – the first of his kind. He turned to the two women.
"I know you want to show me to Divine Justinia - prove mages can be made immune to possession – but there's things I've got to do first."
"I understand – and I will help you," Leliana murmured, "In the name of Most Holy – who is an ally of mages. And for my dear friend, Wynne."
Cassandra frowned. "Most Holy wishes peace between mages and Templars – aiding one side against the other is not the way. Only as a neutral party can we be trusted to broker peace."
The two faced each other. Lambert was fascinated by the quiet dynamics of the contest of feminine wills.
Cassandra pressed the attack – straightforward and certain:
"The mages voted to leave the Chantry. How can they now expect to count on the Chantry's aid?"
"Then I will not go as Left Hand but as myself: the woman who fought beside Wynne in the Fifth Blight."
"She was my mentor," Lambert murmured softly, "and any one of these mages could be me. I'm going."
Cassandra huffed impatiently. "The battle is hopeless – your presence can make no difference. You will die – and countless mages who might have been spared by the peace talks will die. You must look at the greater picture: your presence at the Conclave is vital if we are to convince Templars – and ordinary citizens – that mages need no longer be feared."
Lambert hesitated. He sensed rather than saw the other young Seekers choose sides in the debate. Cullen and Cade backed Cassandra – he and Fenris backed Leliana. Daniel stood apart.
He remembered something Anders had said, when Lambert had pointed out the Resolutionists were using violence to overturn a democratic vote:
"The time of the Senior Enchanters is not like the time of Alrik's prisoners. They cannot wait for us to go through the proper channels."
He remembered being Alrik's prisoner himself:
"Soon, all you'll want is to die. But you won't - not for a long, long time. The pain will be unbearable and you'll be forced to bear it again and again and again. Your purpose between now and the end will be to suffer. Do you understand? It is only your suffering I want."
He was dismayed to feel no grief and so little outrage. Just an acceptance of the facts. At meetings with his fellow students they had spoken of a disturbing inability to care about the sufferings of others. Music that had once touched the heart, art that had once touched the soul, now had no effect.
Some said the training was like being made Tranquil, and the touch of the spirit - for the others it had been Faith, but he would never forget Grace (his mind kept trying to make him forget, but he repeated their name to himself every night, called up the memories) - had cured them. But some loss of emotion remained.
Some overcame this loss of sensitivity in a year or two, others in five or ten - and some never. Lambert had welcomed the buoyancy of pure disinterest that now surrounded the memories of Alrik: the man had raped and eviscerated him, placed demons inside him…so what? Bad things happened.
But once, when talking to Fenris, and confiding he wished he could be as cynical as Zevran, Fenris had told him, "I think it should bother you. Anger is what makes you fight to change things."
Now the hardness of his heart frightened him. He wondered what manner of beast he would become if men like Alrik no longer bothered him. For the first time, he wondered if utter indifference might inspire not inner peace but a limitless capacity for evil. Was that truly what had gone wrong with the Seeker Order? In trying to put mages through the training - to render them immune to possession - would they instead create an army of Tranquil who could cast spells and destroy others without emotion?
He knew he had to talk to his cousin about it. Thomas was the only one who could possibly understand.
The black sky and the rain reminded him of a sea; like being suspended between ocean and space: a fulcrum upon which water and stars turned. There had been another time like this. He and Fenris had gone past the break line of the purling edge of the surf on Llomerryn island – had stood facing each other with the water above their waists.
Fenris had taken him there when he was struggling with the aftershocks of Alrik's torture, in an effort to heal him. An effort of love. No matter how long his own monumental suffering at the hands of Danarius, Fenris had not closed his heart to Lambert's suffering, or that of Sebastian or his other friends. To his sister and their fellow slaves.
His love for Fenris, his tenderness, his admiration, broke through the mist of Seeker training - brought him back to himself. He felt as if his skin were fitting itself to him again. He smiled at his husband. After a year, he and Fenris burned for each other - but it would have been impolite in front of the others and in the midst of an army that wanted them dead!
He turned to Cassandra.
"You are right: peace is valuable. But peace cannot be bought at the expense of justice. When one side is killing children and the other side is defending children, it's pretty easy to see the right path to take. We'll save the mage children - and worry about the Conclave afterwards."
"I cannot stop the three of you," Cassandra admitted, "But I will not accompany you. Cale – you must return to warn Most Holy. Ride fast and hard and do not stop for anything."
Cade's young face looked even younger with the effort to be solemn - to live up to this. He saluted, turned his roan stallion, and rode east, heading towards Perendale.
"Cullen: you're with me - you and I must go to Qarinus."
"Tevinter?" Cullen asked, alarmed.
"We'll find the author of 'Spotlight' - find the one man who might help us stop this war."
Cullen nodded. His look for Cassandra said he would follow her into fire to bring her water if she were damned and thirsting.
Lambert frowned, worried for Varric. Then remembered he had means of warning his friend – and didn't envy Cassandra and Cullen the task of getting past the defences of Magister Maevaris Tilani! Varric would be alright.
The person who shocked him was Daniel. He had liked the young man the best out of his fellow recruits: the history between himself and Cullen was insurmountable and Cale had seemed too young, too full of religious fervour. But now Daniel grinned and shrugged.
"I'm going to join Seeker Lucius," he decided. At Cassandra's startled look he added, "Oh - I don't believe in his cause any more than you do. But I want that promotion."
Lambert was aware of Fenris shifting beside him and placed a warning hand on his knee. By joining the opposing side, Daniel had effectively declared himself their enemy – but Lambert couldn't just kill a man in cold blood. Besides, it wasn't as if Daniel were joining Lord Seeker van Reeves – Lambert would just have to hope that, by the time they faced each other, the peace talks would have prevailed. Wasn't Seeker Lucius Corin supposed to be more reasonable than van Reeves?
Lambert flushed, thinking how annoying it was he had actually been named after the man now attacking Andoral's Reach! At the time of Hawke's birth, Lambert van Reeves had been an ally of mages - had ceaselessly advocated for mage rights and mage freedom. Malcolm Hawke had chosen to honour him just as he had honoured Ser Maurevar Carver. Van Reeves had been a friend of the magister who would later become Divine Nihalias, had believed him to be a moderate who would free Tevinter slaves. Then something had happened...
Lambert, Leliana and Fenris rode the last mile to Andoral's Reach. He could smell the resinous pines, the damp earth. The other hooves clattered on the forest road. It was colder than at sea level, with the hardy conifers growing halfway up the mountains. Before the Fourth Blight, there had been huge rivers that no longer flowed. These had carved the ravines and canyons.
If it had not been for the sight of the smoke columns of the Seeker army Lambert would have enjoyed the ride. It had been a long time since he had sat a horse. The trail - three horses wide and well-packed after years of use - required no great skill; his horse muscled her way up the steeper sections with ease. They passed the narrow openings of two other side-canyons running north, separated by ribs of rock that seemed slender in comparison with the great stronghold of Andoral's Reach.
The Seeker army had ten times the numbers of the mages but they were spread very thinly – it took a lot to surround the fortress. And the mages had the high ground. A mountain stream supplied Andoral's Reach. Lambert noted with relief Anders had a unit of mages guarding it. The Seeker army could not use thirst to force the mages out but they might try poisoning it.
The trail curved snake-like over switchbacks and humps of rock, wound around house-sized blocks of stone at the outfall of the upper valley before angling left to clear the base of the mountain that formed the northern wall. The sky changed colour as they rode - from black to ash-grey.
He felt the skin of his back prickle: his neck itched, his skin felt tight all over. The empty land was vast and strange, and every rock seemed to shelter an unknown menace.
The stream gurgled pleasantly, edged with mint and a blue plant with streaks of gold: ships of gold adrift on a sea with no stars. They rounded a last twist to the clearing where Knight Commander Samson's Red Templar unit were camped. Trees were hacked to the ground: their green wood, slow-burning, fuelled smoke that rose as if from a chimney, straight up the cliffs to Andoral's Reach. Acrid smoke stung his nostrils. Crows, swift black darts across the swirl, were eerily furtive.
The Red Templars had kept the original symbol of their Order: the sword facing upward to show a Templar's willingness to fight maleficarum, rather than downward in the modern style. There was debate on the meaning of the downward sword. Cullen had told him it was meant to symbolise Andraste's sacrifice; Anders that it symbolised making all mages Acts of Faith.
Regardless, the new symbol seemed more menacing still - a blood-red sword on a sky of darkness. Lambert was puzzled how the Red Templar Order had gained such strength - apparently the Divine hadn't sanctioned them. Nor had the Lord Seeker or the Knight Divine. Yet here they were.
And why was Samson leading them? Samson was not a good man - Lambert remembered him promising to help mages then abandoning them to slavers when they could not pay - but he was not exactly devout. The only thing he was loyal to was his lyrium supply. When Meredith had kicked him out he had turned to other means to feed his addiction. Something about that nagged Lambert. He wasn't sure why.
A strange odour filled his nose, woke terrible fears. The memories of Wesley's death – the Fifth Blight – the Deep Roads Expedition – what they had found in the Vinmarks. He felt something in the atmosphere - a smothering wave of evil. His head ached; his mouth tasted of smoke and death. There was a suggestion of water and steel – the smell of lyrium – but this was overlaid by corruption. Like a corpse decaying in water. He remembered the droplet of Corypheus' blood Rillian had given to Janeka – and how Jowan had warned her not to do it. The blood had a tingle in it, a ringing, almost a sound.
At that moment, on some level, he knew Samson's secret, but could not take out that dark pearl of knowledge and examine it.
The closer they came, the more the fading night revealed what lay in store for Andoral's Reach. Lambert struck his thigh in frustration when he saw the screens protecting a positioned trebuchet. Two large mats, thickly woven of branches and saplings, shielded it. Several yards apart, suspended from thick hawsers, the mats were free to swing under impact. A Stonefist striking the first mat would probably penetrate but be wrenched off aim and drastically slowed. A Force spell getting through would lack enough energy to do serious harm. The only part of the trebuchet visible was the sling arm at the vertical.
It was manned by Red Templars. The readied missiles were not rocks. They were vials. Full of a substance Lambert had not seen since working with Rillian Tabris – when her Red Lyrium Idol had accidently tainted a vial of lyrium. She now kept both Idol and the tainted lyrium in a lead-lined box – afraid of it - unable to safely dispose of it. Lambert had only seen the effects once: on that mad expedition to the Primeval Thaig.
Wires crossed in his brain. He grunted as if struck in the stomach.
Leliana and Fenris turned to him, concerned.
"Samson. That filth. He's trying to make Red Mages. He's going to lob his filthy vials into Andoral's Reach until they all start obeying Corypheus."
Leliana's blue eyes took on the hard shine of steel. Her face was colder than the stone behind them. Lambert's handsome face was disfigured by a mix of contemptuous fury and genuine dread. Fenris came to his decision with the speed of a soldier, like a pair of scissors snipping away alternatives.
"A thing to spread Red Lyrium is evil beyond mercy. It must be destroyed."
"What are you going to do?" Leliana murmured.
"The trebuchet is wood: I'll burn it. And the Red Lyrium vials. Then take out Samson."
"No!" Lambert said furiously, "You're my husband. You can't go prowling around in the dark like some night raider."
Fenris chuckled. "You've just spent an entire year doing what you believed to be right. I supported you. I expect the same courtesy."
"I don't want you and the brands anywhere near Red Lyrium! And, if Samson is tainted, you won't be able to use your signature move. Even one blood-spatter will kill you. Slowly. Seeker Leliana and I will destroy the vials - we're both immune to taint. I can cast a flame hot enough to denature the disease creatures - lighting candles with my mind was the first spell my father taught me. I've got lyrium now, and I'm angry."
Fenris reflected on the changes he had seen in his husband. He had fancied the man he had married. This new, more confident, one was even sexier.
"You take out Caron and van Reeves and leave Samson to us. We'll get the leaders and the army will be ready for Anders."
Fenris was, for a moment, dubious: his gentle husband and a Chantry Sister as assassins? Then he looked more closely at the expression on Leliana's face – a hunting hawk staring into the middle distance, passing its life half out of time – and at Lambert's righteous fury, and nodded reluctantly.
"That sounds...reasonable," he huffed. "I'll also phase and warn the mages at the river – tell Anders to be ready. One slip – just one – and we sleep in the Golden City tonight."
Lambert grinned at him – husband, brother-in-arms, best friend - "Let's go, then. I don't relish ending up an Act of Faith either."
Over the three months since Anders had given him the secret to gaatlok, Fenris had not been idle. Naturally, he had served Prince Sebastian Vael as his first Elven Guard Captain. He had also found time to team up with another magehunting duo: Marius and Tessa Forsythia. The three had hunted four members of the Venatori: had taken out Havian Sulara, Corinnia Crallius, Paulus Nimian – and would have gone for Calpernia, their rising star – had Marius not suddenly got cold feet because she was his former lover.
Impatient with such squeamishness, Fenris had parted ways. He now worked alone while in Tevinter – freeing slaves and smuggling them back to Starkhaven with the aid of Admiral Isabella of Llomerryn, leader of the Felicisima Armada.
The Elves of Starkhaven had the same rights and protections as humans. Divine Justinia hadn't supported Sebastian – but she hadn't stopped him either. It was strange: the three rulers who gave Elves equal rights were very different people. Prince Sebastian Vael was a man of faith who believed Elves and humans created equal in the eyes of the Maker. King Channon Cousland had fought beside Elves during the Fifth Blight and knew their worth. Viscount Nathaniel Howe of Kirkwall...well, his Elven lover was the leader of the Antivan Crows and he enjoyed pissing off Chantry traditionalists.
Fenris was once more working with two companions. Instead of saving non-mage children from slavery they'd be saving mage children from death. He shrugged. Either way he'd be fighting the good fight.
The cry of a wolf floated across the quiet. A distant, wisping thread of sound, the song reached inside Fenris, spoke to him of the freedom of the singer. For a long breath, the world seemed to hold in place, caught up in that jarring, spine-tingling sound.
Lately, Fenris had started to have one recurring dream. Unlike the others it was neither a memory of Danarius and the brands nor a dream of longing for his husband.
In the dream Fenris woke in the middle of the night lying in the marital bed. There was a huge creature moving around in the dark, breathing. An enormous wolf, intelligent and vicious. Fenris lay there in the dark waiting for it to attack. He realised if he hadn't woken up the wolf wouldn't have known he was there. But he had woken up: it did know. The sound of its husky breathing and padding paws was inevitable. He saw glimmers of eyes and teeth. He heard wet chops open and close. It rushed him. He felt the dread weight on his face and chest. The brands burned. Its slaver fell onto his face. But it didn't attack. Its jaws lunged and snapped but did not touch him.
Between gnashes and snarls the wolf demanded, "Don't you know who I am?"
Fenris forgot nightmares in the midst of this very real danger - his need to protect his husband. Anders had been right: if the Lord Seeker's army were victorious here they would come for Lambert next - neither Sebastian nor Justinia would be able to protect him.
A moment later Fenris had phased, was looking for the first of his targets. His voice floated towards them on the wind.
"I'll be back."
It was easy to locate the Knight Divine's tent: the purple monstrosity was ridiculously ostentatious. That - and the fact there was a shadow of Lambert in that improbably handsome face - gave him pause for a moment. He had no reason to hate this none-too-bright pawn of Grand Cleric Iona. But such feelings had no place in war. When Grand Cleric Iona ordered Lambert made Tranquil - or an Act of Faith – the Knight Divine would obey.
He made it quick and painless. Gerard Caron simply went to sleep in this world and would wake up in the next.
Fenris phased and travelled on Fade currents towards the mages Anders had stationed to guard the river.
"You!" he shouted at the nearest, "Get a message to Anders. Tell them the Templars attack at dawn. Tell them Leliana and Hawke are destroying their greatest weapon. They'll need to be ready to open the gate and rescue them."
A head appeared, a spot against the stars. "In the morning. The gate's closed for the night. Those are the orders."
"Listen to me. The Red Templars are going to shove your orders down your throat and open your stomach to pull them back out."
The mages – many not more than boys - conversed in a panicky flurry.
"He's one man," a youngster said dubiously.
Fenris huffed impatiently. "Does it take a whole unit to convince you you're going to be attacked? Contact Anders. Tell him I'm repaying him for the gaatlok."
"You know," one young man with the accent of Orlesian nobility said thoughtfully, "This looks awfully like a man Anders worked with in Kirkwall."
"You tell Anders, then, de Launcet!"
By the time the mages decided to trust him, Fenris had already gone.
Silent, feral, he disappeared downhill.
Leliana and Lambert flattened in the grass to crawl towards the trebuchet. Leliana carried a great, double-recurved bow that had belonged to her bard mentor and a quiver of arrows. Lambert carried Encore. Both were also equipped with close-combat weapons: his double daggers - Bard's Honour and The Bodice Ripper - and her dragonbone blade, The Rose's Thorn.
Muted mechanical noise suggested the trebuchet was being readied. Apparently, Red Templars did not need daylight to see. Hushed commands and men grunting in exertion came to them as the straining of beasts.
The Red Templar crew worked in the darkness, but Lambert and Leliana discovered no further security. Apparently, they did not fear being attacked within their own army.
The vials of red lyium were tucked into two revetments dug into the side of a low knoll. Lambert smelled them before he saw them. Up close they were unmistakable. He had seen Ser Otto's lyrium vial, and he had seen what it had looked like after becoming accidently tainted. The tubular protrusions and hammered-in wooden plugs were commonplace, but the liquid like blood in water was not. It was ruby red and stank like a drowned corpse.
Lambert remembered his father's tales of the Fallow Mire – how he and Carver had shivered in delicious horror (Bethany had preferred their mother's tales of knights rescuing princesses). But these were not children's stories: one sip of this would turn a man into something like the decaying ghouls said to rise from the marsh water.
Unlike regular lyrium, it did not sing. Demons and darkspawn did not sing. Or...it did, but deeper, darker.
The song behind the door old whispers want opened...
Who had told him that? He wasn't sure.
It was crystalline, and hot, and as a mage he sensed it thinned the Veil.
Lambert shuddered. Even regular lyrium hit mages hard. Getting this close to the red stuff was like sticking his head into a wasps' nest. He knew it was only his Seeker's training that would get him through this. He must not fail. He was not going to let the mage children at Andoral's Reach suffer this!
Lambert had heard Rillian talk of that monster Erimond, who had been learning from Remille how to make taint airborne. They hadn't managed that yet, but with these vials lobbed by trebuchets they wouldn't have to.
East of them by a few paces, the Red Templar crew strained at the arming winch. The Red Templar issuing commands rode the platform. He cocked the machine by raising the hinged counterweight; his movements swift, sure. With the massive machine silhouetted against the stars, they watched in awe as the huge arm crept back. The beam on the counterweight made a forty-five-degree angle with the vertical.
It was three times the size of the trebuchets Ferelden's army had used during the Fifth Blight. Lambert had never been part of a trebuchet crew – during the Blight he had been a healer - but his cousin had explained the physics to him once. The leader bent down and loaded a lyrium vial into the sling. The counterweight pivoted around a much shorter distance but was much heavier than the payload. As a result it would rise and fall quickly, breaking open inside Andoral's Reach.
Lambert and Leliana recognised Samson immediately. Leliana's exhaling hiss was no more than the whirr of a mosquito. It was charged with a yearning rage that underscored Lambert's own dark-shrouded sigh. When you encountered real evil, that was when you found out what hatred was for.
Silent as a shadow, Leliana nocked an arrow, seeming no more than a darker part of the night. Then released the shaft.
The Red Templar spun about almost too quickly for the eye. Not too quickly for the arrow. It struck Samson in the chest, the impact like a fist. He staggered backwards, caught himself, dropped to his knees.
Lambert was already casting fireball. Heat seemed to flow from him. The surrounding air shimmered. The rain hissed. He sang and he cast: the song a strange bastard of the fireball spell and the Litany of Adralla. Instinct told him what worked on demons and taint would work on this too.
Samson struggled to rise; got to his knees.
A needle of ice pierced the back of his neck. An injection, like the ones he gave Fenris: a quick, cold squirt of...something. It stung. A warning? A premonition? A finger of death? Not a ghost – the watchers behind the Veil were not ghosts – but something as terrifying and malevolent as the demons that haunted the Fade. The Forgotten Ones returned from the abyss of the damned?
The iciness tore out its fangs and flew from him, like a bat taking wing. He involuntarily put his hand up to his neck but there was no wound. His Seeker training...Grace, he made himself remember...had saved him.
His anger burned hotter. Hot enough to engulf the timbers, the vials, the men. Leliana had cast Dispel around herself but was careful not to affect the area. With a roar of loss and fury and pain, Samson crumpled, lying in the centre of the conflagration.
Leliana arrowed four more Red Templars. Then, when the range was too close, drew The Rose's Thorn. She used her bardic powers to fade and then leap from darkness. Red Templars became disembodied screams from the night that ended abruptly, horribly.
Lambert's D melodic minor ascending was a litany of rage. The whistle register – the colour just outside the edges of vision – the white-hot fury crossed in his brain. Now he 'felt' a colour: a hard, whitish-violet light. A window opened at the back of his mind: a window on the graves upon graves of those who had died of taint. The heat of his rage agitated the lyrium until the chains of sickness began to fragment.
A brilliant column of blinding light rose in the sky. The ultraviolet c range had sterilising properties. Speeding strands of violet smoke lifted and rippled, as though folding in on itself. The soil beneath his feet became translucent as silver glass. The red crystals remained starlike for an instant – then disintegrated into mist.
The opalescent light rose like a pillar of fire and the red lyrium vials exploded. There was an earsplitting shatter. The effect was thunderous. Motes of red glass shimmered like flame. Several blasts burst simultaneously, then coagulated in a glory of sound and light. Blue-violet flame balled, billowed to red, leapt into the night. The terrible, spectacular crescendo rocketed across the fields, exploding in a fireshower of ruin. The rain became sparks of lightning; metallic flickers falling to earth. The luminous rain blew sideways.
From the shattered vials in the revetment, a creeping, insidious power oozed across the landscape. Invisible, utterly silent, it slithered in the dark – revealed only in the sudden agonised screams of its victims – the men and women who were not Red Templars. Maddened horses stampeded. Those who were not Red Templars or Seekers cried for help, for mercy, and ran blindly away.
Terror nearly made him throw up; he clamped his hand over his mouth. Fenris! Denatured, the red lyrium was still caustic - inhaling it was like burning alive from the inside. Where were the tents of Fenris' targets?
Unbearable relief turned his muscles to water when he realised there was an east wind – blowing west - and the tents of the Knight Divine and the Lord Seeker faced the rising sun. The insidious power of this curse wouldn't hurt Fenris – or any of the villages to the east. Nor the mages in Andoral's Reach to the north. It would dissipate somewhere over the Tirashan forest.
He thought of the air-poison drifting west, towards the summer life. Wondered if Andoral's Reach were already tainted by proximity. Perhaps the mages - who had thought they had found a safe haven at the furthest reaches of Southern Thedas – would have to move again? To where?
He remembered Rillian struggling to cure taint – using the way Ines Arancia had improved First Enchanter Remille's potion, Avernus' and the Architect's research. He thought of how he was struggling to cure Fenris: Deep Mushroom, the Llomerryn Swamp Flower, elderberry and foxglove. Hadn't Merrill once managed to cleanse an Eluvian? They would have to pool their research to end this evil.
He stood in the dust and put his head in his hands. So much work to cleanse this area of the biohazard he had caused! He felt guilt – no, shame. But what else could he have done? Let the vials be launched into Andoral's Reach, where mage children lay sleeping?
Rillian and Fiona were the only two people Lambert had heard of who were cured of taint. Being cured of taint did not necessarily make them immune to this more virulent form. Recrudescence of the disease was a very real possibility. Tainting lyrium was like combining oil and fire. Lambert had believed himself and Leliana immune because they had been through Seeker training – but were they? He frowned, deciding not to make love with his husband until he was sure.
The thought of how Fenris would take this news made him chuckle ruefully. Ridiculously, utterly incongruously, his heart felt lighter. Marital squabbles were so much easier than the rest of this mess.
Eyes wide, fully awake on the instant, Lord Seeker Lambert van Reeves lay still. Not breathing. Listening. The screams. Had he dreamt them?
He had dreamed of Acts of Faith; choked on the stench. The burning lyrium in his dream had made noises. Bubbling. Smacking. Liquid pouring, separating, coming together. One vein becoming all veins. All becoming one. Not words. Not prayers. Not the self-serving jabber of Divine Justinia. It sang.
Van Reeves rubbed his temple. First the screams: had he heard or dreamt them? Then the smell: the lyrium burning. Was it real? A message from the Maker?
Something was amiss. A sound in the tent – a smell like metallic rain. Immediately, he reached for his sword but the Wraith materialised from the Fade and pushed him down with unnatural strength. In the dim moonlight he caught a glimpse of the dark-skinned face, the blue glow of lyrium.
"Demon," he growled.
The Litany of Adralla leapt to life on his lips. But it had no effect. He stared into the hard green eyes of the Elven assassin and knew he was no demon. This person was mortal as the Lord Seeker himself. He just used lyrium in a similar way to Templars.
He knew who this was. Tales of the Wraith – the assassin who had once been a slave and now killed magisters – had reached him.
Sorrow, perhaps even regret, crossed the killer's face – but only for a moment. It sent a chill through his heart.
"What do you want from me?"
Fenris' husband had told him about being named after this man. Van Reeves had once been an ally and advocate of mages and had argued for their right to self-determination. The young Templar – most Seekers were nobles inducted as youths but van Reeves had worked his way up - had worked with a rebellious young Magister Urian Nihalias against extremist factions in Tevinter. He had believed allying with Tevinter moderates would convince them to – peacefully – give up slavery.
Fenris could have told the young van Reeves that idea was naïve and would never work. No magister would give up owning slaves willingly! Slavery wasn't an issue for wealthy humans to debate over expensive food. Magisters knew no other way and never would until the slaves themselves rose up and forced change.
This newer, more cynical man was not wrong - but it made no difference. The man Fenris loved was a mage and he had long ago decided he and Lambert Hawke would go down fighting the good fight – whether against those who abused mage children or those who made slaves of non-mage children. Whether against sadistic Templars or sadistic Magisters.
In this way, they were different to people like Anders and people like van Reeves. Anders had tried to sell Fenris back into slavery to free mages. Van Reeves was willing to kill mage children in order to save non-mage children. Both were wrong. Lambert had taught him that, whatever the Maker was or wasn't, an act was good or evil in itself. Doing evil for the sake of a greater good was still evil.
Fenris had come to believe that even before he had learned of the advances in technology that could give non-mages a fighting chance. His husband had taught him the Litany – he had learned Marethari's ritual – Leliana had given him the chance to undergo Seeker training. First a mage now an Elf! Most powerful of all was the secret to gaatlok that Anders – Anders! - had shared with him.
He wasn't going to share gaatlok with anyone but Tevinter slaves – did not even trust Seeker Leliana. If Divine Justinia ordered her to place his husband inside a Circle once more she would probably do it. He would keep his promise to Anders. But eventually – as General Loghain Mac Tir had once said, apparently – the knowledge would spread. Military secrets were the most perishable of all.
Fenris didn't trust elites any more than he had done before - people were people, and those with power would always abuse those without – but, this way, the world would be less safe but the balance of power more even. No one side would be able to buy peace at the price of justice for the other.
Van Reeves would never believe this explanation of why mage freedom wouldn't cost non-mages theirs – and he did not have time to explain anyway. But he regretted it.
He could not hate van Reeves - not for wanting to fight for people like him. Not for being as uncompromising as Fenris himself had been only a few years ago! Who had been tricked by the thing behind Samson as Fenris had been tricked by Wryme.
Van Reeves said, "You of all people should know why I do this. Why I cannot let the whole world become Tevinter. The mages have voted for freedom from the Circle system and I am giving them what they chose. Freedom also includes the freedom to rise up against mages. You know that, once mages have absolute freedom, they will take absolute power. Not all mages - but enough that it will make no difference. They wanted total war and they shall have it. I am fighting for people like you."
"Should mage children die because of a vote by mage adults?"
He and van Reeves were talking in Tevene - Fenris had slipped into the language of his birth without even realising it.
"That is war. Adults play politics and the children of those nations pay the price. You should join me, not be a mage's bed warmer. He will never choose you over his own kind."
There was a look in his eyes when he said it – in that moment Fenris knew the Black Divine, Urian Nihalias, had been more to van Reeves than just an ally. He had believed in the man as Fenris believed in Lambert – and Urien had chosen his own kind, had told van Reeves he was naïve to expect anything else.
"He did. My husband and I will fight Venatori together. End slavery in Tevinter. But I cannot let you see the day. It's not personal."
It was strange – they had been talking, had understood each other – but at those last words became enemies again. And forever.
"Ignis," van Reeves said – using his Seeker powers to set the lyrium in Fenris' body on fire.
Inured to the agony of the brands, Fenris took the pain as his own, absorbed it. Sweat bathed his face.
He did not kill van Reeves with the bolter, or his hand inside the man's chest. He ran him through with Lethandralis, giving him that respect. The pain stopped abruptly and the relief was almost an agony in itself. The sword went through van Reeves' abdomen and the runes made sure it was quick.
Van Reeves lay on his side in the fetal position, about to be born into the Golden City, both hands clenched around his cold umbilical.
"Ego te absolvo," Fenris whispered.
He did not know why he felt compelled to say the words Brother Sebastian had said for him - knew he didn't have the right to, as he was not a Chantry priest - but felt better for having done so.
He withdrew the blade and phased. He would protect Lambert and Leliana, alone among the Templar army.
Outside, the explosion of the red lyrium vials had been like poking a burning stick into a hornet's nest. The enemy camp was entirely awake. A shimmering heat wave disdained the drizzling rain. The chill pink mist of denatured red lyrium smeared the light.
A Templar Knight Captain raised a ragged howl. Swelling, the call soon rang from everywhere; stronger, surer. Fenris understood. Templars were soldiers and, like any properly trained army, performed almost by reflex. One Knight Commander was dead – a Knight Captain had risen to take his place, was organising the attack.
The bulk of the army charged forward to claim their vengeance.